Olive Garden Pasta Pass 2018 Review

So it’s over. The two month Pasta Pass is complete and while I thought it was a good deal, I will probably not do it again. Simply put, it’s unhealthy. I didn’t mind eating the same thing over and over since it saved so much time and money, but I gained 5 pounds and a layer of belly flab I’ve never had before. I also ended up not using it as much as I would’ve liked because of family dinners, various company/social events, and my gf saying no.

Still, it was a great experience and I had a lot of fun! There is so much satisfaction in waltzing in, getting a table for one, brandishing my bright green pasta pass, and having the power to summon any amount of food. Explaining it to friends and family will get you mixed reactions of admiration and disgust. Planning my combinations and writing all about it was fun too. Here’s an overview of my experience, and some weird things I’ve noticed about how Olive Garden runs their restaurant.

Stats:

# Visits – 20
# Meals – 40 (take home every time)
Tip Paid – $40 ($2 per visit)
Total Cost – $100 + $40 = $140
My Cost per Meal = $3.50
Cost per Visit without Pasta Pass ~ $16
Total Savings ~ $180

The Never-ending Pasta Bowl

You get breadsticks, soup or salad, and a make-your-own pasta with your choice of noodle, sauce, and topping. All are unlimited, but refill pasta bowls come in half portion sizes. First I’ll describe my strategy to ordering, then review each individual item/ingredient and provide some recommended combinations. Here’s my article describing my approach to the different pasta combinations.

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My Strategy

1. Order water, pasta, and salad as soon as the waiter arrives at your table (Be ready! They can take a while between visits). If they offer a wine sample say yes!
2. Eat some of the salad, half of the first pasta (which is a full portion size), and one breadstick. Put as much of the salad as you can into the plate so you are ready to send an empty bowl back for another one.
3. When the waiter comes back, say you want to start your refill order and want another salad.
4. Finish the remaining salad.
5. When the 2nd order comes by, mix it up so it appears you ate some of it.
6. Finish the whole second salad.
7. Pack up the half of the first pasta and all of the refill portion, some breadsticks if you want, then you got tomorrow’s lunch!

Pro-tip: If you’re with a sizable group, you can ask them to leave the cheese grinder at your table.

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Pasta Bowl Review

Pastas

• Fettuccine – Good.
• Spaghetti – Good.
• Rigatoni – Horrible. Dry and difficult to mix with sauce.
• Angel hair – Good.
• Cavatappi – Ok. Shape is too bulky and poorly grabs sauce.
• Rotini – Good. Gluten-free. Ask for more sauce when ordering this noodle.
• Wheat linguini – Good. Not bad as people say online.

Sauces

• Creamy spinach artichoke – Bad. Sounds good on paper but it has a peculiar taste, and texture is not appealing.
• Creamy mushroom – Good. Almost indistinguishable from alfredo, with a light mushroom flavor.
• Traditional marinara – Good. A classic.
• Five cheese marinara – Horrible. Who came up with this? A disgusting orange barf concoction.
• Traditional meat sauce – Good. A bit salty.
• Alfredo – Ok. Not exactly the consistency you’d expect. I’d prefer to go with the creamy mushroom for some mushroom flavor.

Toppings

• Garden veggies – Horrible. Little diced pieces of tomato, broccoli, carrot, zucchini, and peas. It does not taste good in pasta.
• Meatballs – EXCELLENT. Wow. Huge, juicy, perfectly seasoned, perfectly cooked meatballs, every time. Best item for sure.
• Italian sausage – Ok. Hit or miss. Sometimes juicy, sometimes dry.
• Crispy chicken fritta – Ok. Tasty but too salty. Sometimes dry.
• Grilled chicken – Good. Nice smoky flavor if you’re lucky.
• Crispy shrimp fritta – Good. Small in size and quantity – order extra if you can (some waiters might charge you more for double portion toppings, just check that they don’t).

Best Pasta Combinations

• Fettuccine, Grilled Chicken, Alfredo (of course)
• Spaghetti, Meatball, Traditional marinara (of course)
• Angel Hair, Meatball, Creamy mushroom (my fave)

Worst Pasta Combination

• Rigatoni, Garden Veggies, 5 Cheese marinara. Literally just the worst individual ingredients put together.

Other Items

Soups

• Minestrone – Bad. It just doesn’t taste good. Tried it twice and the vegetables tasted like they went bad.
• Pasta e Fagioli – Ok. Meh.
• Zuppa Toscana – Very Good. Everyone’s fav. The bits of kale are delightful.
• Chicken Gnocchi – Good. But probably the saltiest.

Salad

• House salad – Ok. It’s the only one they’ve got. Lettuce, tomato, olives, italian dressing, and two peperoncini peppers. Pro-tip: you can ask for ranch.

Breadsticks

• They suck. All the hype was about their breadsticks. I was surprised to see a strange long, thin stick coated in oil and salt. It’s factory bread. Ok for dipping in soups.

Mints

• Ok. WARNING – DO NOT PUT THEM IN YOUR POCKETS. These chocolate mints will melt in your hand.

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Commentary

The problem with the pastas is that every ingredient is cooked separately and they don’t mix the sauce into the noodle for you. Often times there is not enough sauce to adequately coat the pasta. HOWEVER, all the noodles are surprisingly cooked very well with the exception of rigatoni. The noodles are consistent in quality and are actually fine to eat without sauce.

Every table has a bulky, grimy touchscreen where you can pay for your meal and play games. DON’T let your kids play with it. As soon as you click a game, it tries sneaks a charge on you.

Service is really weird. They appear to operate like a well-oiled machine, with lots of staff walking around talking into their mics and crowds of waiters tapping at the pay station. But orders are always messed up, the wine glasses are always dirty, the waiters seem to be operating too many tables too far apart, and it all just feels like well managed chaos. It is strange to me that tables right next to each other are assigned different waiters. The hosts at the front have the sole purpose of assigning tables and walking around to count which ones are free. How is that an entire job and why do they need so many? Even though I’ve visited at least 20 times, it feels like I’ve been served by 15 different waiters. There are so many employees.

I’ve never seen anything like it. Different people come out to hand you your food, and randomly a topping will come out separately and super late from someone else entirely. Once, a kitchen worker came out to give us a topping. Once, we ordered sauce on the side, and it didn’t appear until after our NEXT order came. Once, I sat alone at a two person table with 6 wine glasses on it. Once, a waiter handed me water and asked if I needed anything else…but I just barely sat down! I didn’t even ask for water yet and it appeared that he thought I was all ordered and waiting for my food. Once, a waitress served me the pasta first…before the breadsticks, before the salad, before the WATER. How does this all even work? I suspect there are logical inefficiencies in their computer system that split things up and allow for things to occur out of order, which causes these strange scenarios.

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Conclusion

Some things were better than expected, some things were worse than expected. Overall, everything is too salty, made from cheap ingredients, and overpriced. It is surprising to me that every night I go, the restaurant is packed! Also every night someone’s there to celebrate a birthday. Some people go there for dates, some go for family reunions. Why?? My tip for you – only go if you’ve got a pasta pass.